Allium leaf miner

[Marcusp]

Put in 120 onion sets in April and just burnt the lot. Everyone on our allotement has suffered this pest this year with onions collapsing, growing distorted and having white grubs inside.

Be aware as its a spreading pest originating from the west mids and currently no treatment.

Same issues as carrot fly and crops need covering with fleece/ enviromesh in March and again in sept or you will lose all your onions

[Nicos]

Yeh- we got it really badly in our leeks this year- such a waste

All our mature leeks looked like this....

[Scarlet]

A friend that has an allotment near by has had them several years on the trot. I don't bother growing onions but i grow leeks and so far I haven't had a problem. He nets his all his onions and leek with debris netting.

[Mr Bones]

Sorry you've lost your crop Marcusp. Last year we dumped 500 onions, shallots and garlic, this year we covered up with 0.6mm wondermesh from early March until mid May. Some plants have still been affected near the edges so it seems we should have buried the netting in the earth to form a better seal rather than weighting down with bricks. Everyone on our site appears to be suffering.

[Marcusp]

Yep horrible pest. I think extra fine enviromesh or fleece for next yeR. Apparently it has two periods of destruction. Sept and March so I need to be prepared for next year

[seasprout]

Garlic woes

I've just been cleaning up my rather pathetic Garlic harvest for 2015, some plants got mould and were dumped, the rest I dried.

I've been trimming back the dried foliage and I've found dried pupa of the Allium Leaf Miner in some of the stems of my Garlic.

I'm gutted, (a bit like my Garlic), I knew this pest was prevalent in the South East of the country, but did not realise it had come this far north.

This is going to change my entire growing technique when growing Garlic, Leeks and Onions from now on.

Time to seek out fine mesh. :-(

All very depressing.